‘It’s not as simple as real image and fake image’: Qualcomm weighs in on AI photo editing debate

I felt for illustration I opened a tin of worms erstwhile I asked Samsung astir its stance connected AI photograph editing astatine Galaxy Unpacked backmost successful January. “There is nary specified point arsenic a existent picture,” Patrick Chomet, Samsung’s Head of Customer Experience, told maine astatine nan clip – a nihilism-tinged soundbite that, successful fairness, came arsenic portion of a nuanced and perfectly valid philosophical commentary connected nan quality of photography (in nan aforesaid interview, Chomet rightly talked up nan value of validating authenticity).

Marques Brownlee precocious included Chomet’s quote successful an X post highlighting nan differing opinions of Samsung, Apple, and Google connected this very subject. Still, ultimately, each of nan awesome telephone manufacturers are offering akin editing features (Magic Eraser, Clean Up, AI Eraser, and truthful on).

Qualcomm, for its part, acknowledges that AI photograph editing is an breathtaking caller frontier but besides 1 fraught pinch awkward ethical implications. During a roundtable question and reply astatine Snapdragon Summit, nan company’s Mobile Handset SVP, Chris Patrick, explained why he believes that AI photograph editing “is not arsenic elemental arsenic a existent image and clone image.”

“It’s an absorbing question, because nan quality encephalon is not digital,” nan erstwhile technologist explained. “When you comprehend nan sunset outside, you don't comprehend nan sunset absent of context. You cognize wherever you are. You cognize what you're smelling. You cognize what you're hearing, You cognize what you're feeling. You cognize what a sunset looks like, right? All of that is portion of really you comprehend nan space."

“So then, erstwhile we seizure an image, should it conscionable beryllium nan earthy consequence from nan sensor? Or is it correct to see discourse successful really that image is created? I'm not an expert. I don’t person a PhD successful this topic, but I do deliberation it's not arsenic elemental arsenic a existent image and clone image. I deliberation discourse matters, and extracting nan very champion we tin from nan full business is an meticulous reflection of what nan oculus and nan encephalon do arsenic well."

“[However],” Patrick continued, “if there's a image of Rui [Guo, Honor CMO, besides successful attendance astatine nan roundtable] and I connected nan moon, it should beryllium very clear that that is not, successful fact, a image of Rui and I connected nan moon. That’s not correct – that’s manipulated.

“So, for us, it’s very clear that location has to beryllium immoderate system to separate nan different utmost – those manipulated images – for people. We’re building unthinkable exertion together but we want to make judge that, successful nan end, it does not person a destructive impact, wherever group tin nary longer show nan quality betwixt truth and fiction.”

More AI is connected nan way

Honor CMO Rui Guo besides attended nan Snapdragon Summit roundtable, having conscionable announced that nan Honor Magic 7 Pro – slated for merchandise successful Europe adjacent twelvemonth – will motorboat pinch nan industry's first on-device generative AI image enhancement. So, is nan institution utilizing AI to make portraits look amended than they really are? Or is nan purpose to mimic real-life specifications that Honor’s hardware can't seizure connected its own?

“On nan 1 hand,” Guo explained, “we person to make judge that nan photograph itself is bully by modern user standards. Everyone knows what [constitutes] a bully and bad photo. But connected nan different hand, we decidedly want to clasp nan authenticity of nan photo. We're not trying to Photoshop nan photograph for nan consumer, right? We should springiness nan authority to nan users astatine extremity of nan day.”

And that, I think, is nan crux of nan matter. Tools for illustration Magic Eraser and Clean Up go ethically dubious erstwhile users – or, much worryingly, politicians – effort to walk tampered images disconnected arsenic real, but arsenic a intends of occasionally removing strangers from family picnic photos, AI photograph editing is, for galore people, undeniably useful.

Neither Qualcomm nor Honor is forcing these devices onto their consumers – if you want to return a photograph successful nan aforesaid measurement arsenic you ever person done, you still can. Rather, companies are giving users nan state to take really to seizure moments that matter to them. Sure, it’s a tin of worms, but arsenic Qualcomm’s Chris Patrick noted, “it’s not arsenic elemental arsenic existent image and clone image.”

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